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Spider-Man, 7/17/16

Oh, thank goodness all that super-powered combat is over and done with so we can move on to … drama in the contracting media business! You know, when I started writing that sentence I was being sarcastic, but by the time I got to the end of it I was 100% sincere. Please, please show me J. Jonah Jameson arguing with angry BugleCo shareholders, and eventually changing the company to “buonc” and making Peter Parker run the Snapchat channel for no extra pay. This would be roughly a million times better than a couple of dumb wizards fighting over the Wand of fucking Watoomb.

Mark Trail, 7/17/16

Hey, kids! Are you interested in visiting mass graves full of the herpes-ridden corpses of enormous, grotesque fish? Visit the Murray-Darling river basin in 2018! (This message brought to you by Tourism Australia. Australia! The Island-Continent of Waking Nightmares™!)

Blondie, 7/17/16

Hmm, let me tell you about another guy who had one of those “best of times, worst of times” days, Dagwood. His name was Sydney Carton and he got beheaded, so maybe you shouldn’t be so concerned about a little cash, OK?

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Family Circus, 7/8/16

One of my favorite things about the way the Family Circus constantly reuses art that’s decades old is that somewhere along the line some editor realized, “Oh, crap, everyone is supposed to wear seat belts now! The Family Circus, as an incredibly influential part of today’s media, can’t afford to send the dangerous message that not wearing your seatbelt is ‘cool!’ Looks like we’re going to have to add seat belts into all the old art, when we inevitably reuse it!” This has produced laughable results like today’s panel, in which, if I know my classic American station wagons, Dolly is supposed to be sitting in the “back back” or “way back,” i.e., the storage area where there’s no seat of any kind, where all of us kids born before 1980 or so were free to just roll around without any restraints or safety equipment and died in droves. Anyway, please join me in enjoying that seat belt, coming out of nowhere, hooking over Dolly’s back, and connecting to nothing. It almost makes me sad that once we got to the era when all children under the age of 10 had to be in car seats everyone involved in the production of this strip was just like “Enh, screw it.”

Mark Trail, 7/8/16

Hey, remember when Mark’s face accidentally fell on Carina’s face, back in the cave, and she tried to get him to do sex things with her, and the first thing he thought of to make her stop trying was to say “Yes, Carina, I am happily married”? Well, that definitely counts as being “made” to decide take some time off and invest in his relationship with his wife. Presumably they’ll voyage to the mysterious South Pacific, to frolic on a beach where they’ll discover these lovebirds’ mouldering corpses.

The Phantom, 7/8/16

I’ve sort of assumed that Kit Jr. was going to Tibet but I think they’ve only been saying “the Himalayas” so I guess it’s possible he’s headed for a Buddhist monastery in the northern fringes of India, or Bhutan or Nepal, which would qualify, barely, as “the subcontinent.” Still, has he considered that the monastery probably doesn’t have Internet? Also, you know where there’s Internet? The Skull Cave! He could learn a lot about the subcontinent back at the Skull Cave, is what I’m saying.

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Mark Trail, 7/2/16

So our mysterious circa 2014 sea-tourists have decamped to a deserted island, to make out! Hat Lady’s pouty face in panel one looks hilariously sarcastic to me? [fake baby voice] “Aww, I’m so sorry something bit your tender skin, little boy. NOW GET OVER HERE AND KISS ME LIKE A MAN WOULD KISS ME.” Presumably when Mark stumbles onto this island two years from now, these two will have fully mutated into ant-people.

Shoe, 7/2/16

A fun thing to do when you encounter an obvious euphemism for “had sex,” like “been romantic” in panel one here, is to contemplate whether an editor demanded the change or if the writer knew it had to be toned down for the “funny pages.” I for one yearn for the days when a bird-man wearing saddle shoes and what appear to be purple leg warmers but no pants can have a frank, honest, and open discussion about his sex life in the newspaper.